IT TODAY
security and other data center
costs could result in a higher TCO
than a mainframe environment for
most IT organizations. Certainly,
each client's IT environment
and operating costs are unique,
resulting in different costs and
savings. However, many organizations employing a holistic view of
IT expense analysis find a lower
cost run rate in their mainframe
environment.
Client Solution
and Benefits
Organizations seek ways to
improve, enhance and consolidate their IT environments to
support new business requirements. In one use case, Vitec
AutoData AS, a hosting and
managed services provider to
importers, wholesalers and retailers of automotive parts in Norway,
needed to adapt to changing
client expectations and to gain
scalability to support ongoing business growth. It looked
to refresh its IT architecture,
ensuring its ability to continue to
provide highly secure, scalable,
compatible and reliable services.
The organization approached
IBM to explore ways to
re-architect its data center. The
reliability, flexibility, security
and performance of the IBM Z
platform provides a perfect fit
for the business model and led
Vitec AutoData to upgrade from
Windows* to Linux on IBM Z.
Geir Erland Fladby, system
administrator, Vitec AutoData,
explains: "We decided to move
away from Windows for two main
reasons. First, Linux is much more
cost-efficient, as it means that we
have very low licensing costs. Second, running Linux enables us to
utilize the free, open resources of
the Linux community. An added
bonus of the Linux system is that
it runs incredibly efficiently on
the IBM Z platform."
"With IBM Z, we can ensure 24-7 always-on
availability, incredibly high reliability and
super-high performance."
-Geir Erland Fladby, system administrator, Vitec AutoData
They will use new applications on Linux on Z, such
as Apache Tomcat, MariaDB,
SQLite, open-source languages,
GNU development tools, the
optimized Decimal Floating
Point Library libdfp and the
Concurrent Versioning System.
"What's more, we will be
much better equipped to provide
our clients with even higher
levels of service. With IBM Z, we
can ensure 24-7 always-on availability, incredibly high reliability
and super-high performance."
The business values Vitec
AutoData achieved include:
*
*
*
Reduced TCO of IT
architecture
Strengthened scalability,
security and reliability
of critical services
Easy onboarding of
new clients
Learn more about the company
and the solution IBM provided
(ibm.co/2CC1AAS).
Know Workload Needs
Companies, in different
industries, share some commonalities. They:
*
*
Used a variety of applications
and distributed systems to
run their businesses
All had business issues that
affected their current operations that had to be resolved
10 // MARCH/APRIL 2018 ibmsystemsmag.com
*
*
MORE USE CASES:
Read how a bank
and utility company
decide to use
Linux on Z
Evaluated multiple technology platforms from different
vendors
Arrived at the same conclusion-the IBM Z mainframe
was the platform of choice to
address their business challenges
A thorough understanding
of current and future workload
requirements is critical to selecting the right platform. It can also
avoid a solution that may not
meet application needs or provide
the lowest cost.
TCO analysis of all IT factors
enables a holistic view of IT costs.
For clients, TCO showed that
IBM Z can be very cost effective compared with x86, other
distributed server or hosted cloud
environments.
The IBM Z platform continues
to evolve to meet clients' business-critical needs. The platform's
support of modern open-source
technology like Java, Node.js, Angular.js, Go and MongoDB provides a
software development environment
as robust as, and in many areas far
better than, x86 and other distributed environments.
Performance, reliability,
security, manageability and
encryption don't have to be compromised to lower costs. These
clients were able to provide these
qualities of service for their applications and reduce IT spending
when using IBM Z.